A UNC School of Government Blog
One of the purposes for sentencing for impaired driving, like sentencing generally, is to rehabilitate offenders so that they may be restored to the community as lawful citizens. Cf. G.S. 15A-1340.12. The rehabilitative aims of the sentencing scheme for impaired driving are evident in the requirement that offenders obtain substance abuse assessment at treatment as … Read more
I ended last week’s post by noting that the date on which a prior impaired driving conviction occurs for purposes of the seven-year-look-back period in G.S. 20-179(c)(1)(a) may not be immediately obvious when a district court conviction for an impaired driving offense has been appealed to superior court and the appeal is later withdrawn. When … Read more
In a post here Jamie discussed whether a defendant who was sentenced under the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) can successfully bring a motion for appropriate relief asserting that he or she is entitled to “retroactive” application of the provisions of Structured Sentencing Law (SSL). Jamie posited—correctly as it turns out—that the answer to this question … Read more
A while ago I wrote this post about the “single sentence rule,” the statutory directive that tells the Division of Adult Correction (DAC) how to administer consecutive sentences. Under G.S. 15A-1354(b), if a defendant is subject to consecutive sentences, the prison system treats him as though he has been committed for a single, aggregate term. … Read more
In this prior post, I wrote about how Justice Reinvestment changed the rules for determining where a person serves his or her sentence. Today’s post takes a closer look at the proper place of confinement for misdemeanor inmates with sentences of 91 to 180 days, the Statewide Misdemeanant Confinement Program (MCP). The basic idea of … Read more
Our appellate courts spend a lot of time writing about restitution. Consequently, so do I. Prior posts discuss some of the thornier restitution issues that come up from time to time. There’s this one on restitution for drug-buy money; this one on restitution to victims of unconvicted conduct; this one on restitution to government agencies; … Read more
Under amended G.S. 15A-1344(a), for probation violations occurring on or after December 1, 2011, a court may only revoke probation for a violation of the “commit no criminal offense” condition or for violations of the new statutory absconding condition set out in G.S. 15A-1343(b)(3a). For all other probation violations occurring on or after that date, … Read more
Many parts of the Justice Reinvestment Act, including most of the changes related to “front-end” sentencing, were made effective for offenses occurring on or after December 1, 2011. It takes some time for those offense-date based changes to show up in court for sentencing, but it’s starting to happen. Especially on the early end of … Read more
Some criminal defendants just want to serve their time. There a variety of reasons for that. Sometimes they are facing active time for another conviction and hope the new sentence can be served concurrently. Sometimes it’s a money issue. And some defendants simply find life under community supervision to be difficult. Probation can be hard, … Read more
It’s been a while since I wrote anything about satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders. A recent case from the court of appeals provides a nice opportunity for an update. The case, State v. Sprouse, dealt with (among other issues) the heavily-litigated question of what constitutes an “aggravated offense” for purposes of the SBM law. … Read more